had left a breeze behind. Relief an open door away, she moved to the French doors that led on to the front porch and flung them wide in a sudden burst of hopeful energy.
At the very least, she had expected to hear a chorus of morning songbirds, but instead she felt a clunk and heard a string of colorful cursing, half of it in French. In an instant she knew who owned that distinctive drawl. Dreading her next move, Nicole forced herself to peer around the door.
He was leaning against the house wearing beat-up jeans and scuffed brown western boots. His hair was tied back the same as yesterday, too. One of his hands was rubbing his hip and the other was pinching his nose to stem the flow of blood.
Blood. Oh, God!
Nicole ducked back inside, grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand and dashed back outside. “Here,” she said, shoving the pink tissues in his face.
He took the offering without saying a word and pressed the tissues to his nose. Within a few minutes the blood had stopped flowing, and he balled up the tissues and jammed them into his back pocket. Giving her his full attention now, he said, “You carry accident insurance, cherie? It looks like working for you could be dangerous.”
Instead of anger, Nicole saw amusement dancing in his dark eyes. He rubbed at his hipbone again, then flashed her a crooked smile, which Nicole rejected with a stubborn lift of her chin. “If you’re looking for fringe benefits, Mr. Bernard, you won’t find them here.”
His grin turned wicked. “Oh, I don’t know. Insurance ain’t everything.” He gave her a thorough once-over. “And the name’s Johnny. Remember?”
Nicole didn’t care one bit for his sexist ogling. “Since you’re in one piece, I’ll leave you to whatever it was you were doing.” She turned to go back inside, then hesitated. “Which was…?”
“Checking out the condition of the porch. You did say it was top priority, right?”
“Yes, I did. But this early?”
“I couldn’t sleep. You, too?” He frowned. “Funny, I had you pegged for a snoozer ’til noon.”
How he did it, Nicole didn’t know. But as she turned to leave, he slipped in front of her and blocked the door with one of his long arms. It brought them in close contact, forcing Nicole to acknowledge his hairy, bare chest covered in a sheen of sweat. He had powerful biceps, too, all muscled and honed impossibly hard.
“I could use a glass of water. Got one?”
“Water?” Nicole was suspicious, and yet she couldn’t very well deny him after asking for the same courtesy yesterday at the boathouse. “Wait here.”
He dropped his arm. “I’ll pass on the ice,” he told her.
She hurried past him, through her bedroom and into the private bathroom, where she filled a glass quickly. But as she stepped back into her bedroom, she was brought up short—Johnny Bernard stood only a few feet from her bed.
He turned, saw her surprise, and said, “Red Smote just pulled in the front yard. Hanging around outside your open door looked worse than just coming in. Should I leave?”
“I think that would look worse, don’t you?” Nicole glanced at the clock. It was barely six. “If Red sees you leaving at this hour…” She didn’t need to go on.
“Red’s the biggest gossip in town,” he agreed. “At least, he used to be. We wouldn’t want the town speculating on something that never happened.” He relaxed his stance and shoved one hand into his left front pocket. “Hell, if a guy’s gonna be accused of something memorable, he should at least have the pleasure of doing it first.”
He was teasing her, his knowing eyes full of mischief. But just for the record, to let him know she wasn’t a push-over, she said, “I know where to kick you to make it hurt the most, so if you’ve got any ideas, I suggest you forget them.”
He laughed. “You won’t get any work out of me if I can’t walk, cherie.”
He had a point. Nicole took the necessary steps to close the distance between them, and handed over the glass of water. Then, to make sure Red was truly in the yard, she chanced a quick glance out the door. Sure enough, he was leaning on the hood of his run-down, red Ford pickup, talking to Gran’s handyman, Bickford Arden, the husband to their loyal housekeeper. Several mornings a week the two elderly men went fishing before breakfast. Hoping that was the plan and that they would head to the bayou soon, Nicole turned around to assure Johnny that he could leave shortly, only to find he’d moved closer to her bed and had become very interested in the rumpled satin sheets where she’d tossed and turned half the night.
Color swept into Nicole’s cheeks, and Johnny turned just in time to witness it. “Restless night?”
“The heat,” she responded.
He glanced around the room. Nicole was sure he had no interest in floral wallpaper in Wedgwood-green and gypsy-rose, but his eyes seemed to miss nothing. She doubted that he would be able to quote what the massive bed, bureau and matching vanity were worth on the antique collectors’ market, but, still, his interest was keen as his hand brushed over each piece in obvious appreciation. Finally, he stopped in front of her vanity, his dark eyes finding her in the generous mirror. “Heard you’re staying.”
“Yes, I am,” Nicole assured.
“And the heat?”
“I’ll learn to love it.”
He grinned. “You move too fast. Slow down some. That’ll help.” He emptied his water glass, set it on the vanity, then turned his attention to her lacquered jewelry box. With a flick of his wrist, he flipped the top open and looked inside.
Surprised by his boldness, Nicole stared speechless as he rummaged through her personal items, a piece at a time. Finally, his head came up to capture her reflection once more in the mirror. A minute dragged into two before he let his gaze drop back to her modest assortment of baubles, and he pulled out an inexpensive bracelet. “No shiny rocks, cherie.” He looked at her in the mirror again as if waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, he returned the bracelet to the box and closed it. “So what’s important to you, Nicki Chapman? It’s obviously not a box full of gold and silver.”
No it wasn’t, Nicole admitted to herself. To some women, expensive jewelry was important, but not to her. Oh, she liked nice things, but she was more a simple pleasures kind of woman. She enjoyed painting a breathtaking sunrise. Walking in a warm summer rain. She thought a bona fide laugh, a beautiful smile, priceless. But those were her private thoughts and she didn’t intend to share them with a stranger.
“Look, Mr. Ber—Johnny, what’s important to me is my business. Yours is doing the job you were hired to do, not asking questions.”
“Does that work both ways? You don’t have any questions for me?”
“It’s not the same thing,” Nicole argued. “I’m not on parole. And I haven’t earned a reputation in this town as a troublemaker.”
Instead of being offended his dark eyes softened and he wagged a finger at her. “Shame on you for listening to the gossip, cherie. You know what they say. Half of it usually isn’t true.”
“And the other half?”
“Sometimes fighting back is the only way you can survive.”
It was clear that he was a man ripened by experience and polished by a predatory edge. Still, was he saying all that was just a false front? That he’d reacted instead of acted? Nicole had done much the same thing, only not in such a grand fashion. She’d donned her L.A.-cool facade to survive the pain she’d left behind, and even before she’d lost her baby, when Chad had walked out on them, she’d pasted a smile of indifference on her face.
She didn’t want to dismiss his offenses so easily, but if she was right, she couldn’t help wondering who or what had prompted his less-than-sterling reputation.